


Sea Legs

by randomwriter57



Series: Reigisa Week 2018 [2]
Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Boats and Ships, Falling In Love, M/M, Magic, Pre-Relationship, Reigisa Week, kind of in an rpg universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 06:55:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13382526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randomwriter57/pseuds/randomwriter57
Summary: Having come from a port town, Nagisa has long since gained his sea legs. Rei, on the other hand, has not.





	Sea Legs

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!  
> This fic was inspired by my favourite series of JRPGs. As soon as I saw "fantasy", I wanted to write something like this. Still, it doesn't contain any references (save for maybe a very vague one) so please enjoy this as it is!
> 
> Written for [Reigisa Week 2018](http://reigisaweek.tumblr.com), Day Two: Fantasy.

Having come from a port town, Nagisa had long since gained his sea legs. He can spend months at a time on any sea vessel without fear of sickness, free to run around the deck, helping his guild-members out and generally being merry.

As for his newest client, that wasn’t the case.

He was a mage; a city boy, used to a life of worn papers and crowded streets. He relied on the strength of his own mind and feet. He had thus far lived a life of comfort and stability.

Ryugazaki Rei did not belong on a ship.

And yet, here he was.

Nagisa certainly wasn’t complaining. As sickly as the man appeared right now, he was actually rather attractive, with elegant blue hair and wire-framed glasses - something only high-ranking mages and scholars could afford. He insisted on wearing his traveller’s cloak when on the deck, so Nagisa rarely saw him in any other clothes. On the off-chance that they passed each other on the way to their cabins, Rei usually wore sleeping clothes. It had kind of become a personal mission for him to catch Rei without his traveller’s cloak, just to see what he wore underneath.

In any case, right now he looked the same as ever, with his traveller’s cloak hiding his clothes from view as he held a hand over his mouth, skin a light green from nausea. Though his seasickness made him loathe to go onto the deck, he also accepted what literally every guild member had been telling him for weeks - that if he didn’t get fresh air each day, he’d only feel worse.

Nagisa walked away from the edge of the boat, moving toward the centre walls where Rei sat. “I take it your sea legs aren’t working yet?”

Rei looked up and groaned. “Not quite,” he muttered.

“Don’t worry about it Rei-chan,” Nagisa said, sitting down beside the mage and patting his shoulder. “They’ll come with time.”

“It’s been three weeks since our departure,” Rei said with a grim expression. “If they don’t come now, then I don’t expect they ever will.”

Nagisa hummed. It made sense that he would doubt his ability to become used to the sea, especially considering that they didn’t have long left in their voyage to the western continent. Still, Nagisa had hoped that if Rei became used to sea travel, he might want to stay a while longer.

Three weeks ago, Rei barely spoke to anyone in the guild, sticking to his cabin and reading books instead of interacting. In the end, it had been down to Nagisa to slowly bring him out of his shell, until eventually Rei could hold a casual conversation with most of the guild members without trouble. It was Nagisa who spent the most time with him, of course, meaning that they had developed a closer friendship than any of the others had with Rei, or at least, so Nagisa thought.

So close was their friendship, in fact, that a week into their voyage, Nagisa started to feel a pang of pain in his heart at the thought of Rei leaving them. Sure, they hadn’t known each other long, but for the first time, it felt like he had his own best friend in the guild, someone who wasn’t already best friends with someone else. His childhood friends Makoto and Haruka had known each other far longer than they’d known him, so they’d been exclusive from the start. As for the other guild members, whilst Nagisa liked them well enough, they just weren’t close enough to be his best friends.

Then Rei came along.

It wasn’t like Nagisa could do anything to stop Rei from leaving - the entire reason he was on this voyage was to provide services to the King, ones which only his level of magic ability could achieve. Nagisa wouldn’t dare stop him from doing his job. But he sometimes wished that, at the last minute, Rei would ask him to come along, too.

Not that that was likely to happen, given that the job was apparently top-secret. Rei refused to tell him anything besides the vaguest explanations possible. Nagisa’s endless stream of curiosity could never be satisfied.

“Well, you never know!” Nagisa said, trying to wear his usual smile. “A miracle might happen if you believe in yourself.”

Rei shook his head. “If only there was a spell or a potion I could use, even just to ease the nausea a little.”

“Do you not know any healing spells?” Nagisa asked, tilting his head to the side. “I thought you were a mage.”

“I am a mage!” Rei said indignantly. “I specialise in attack and defence magic, not support. Besides, I’m not sure there’s much a healer could do either. Most of their spells are meant to heal wounds, right?”

Nagisa hummed. “But they can cure poison and other inflictions.”

“Not nausea, though.”

It didn’t sound like Rei much wanted to continue this discussion, so Nagisa changed it. “What kind of magic can you do, anyway? Specifically, I mean.”

Rei’s expression became thoughtful, and he looked down at the book he always kept at his side. “Well, it’s mostly earth-elemental attacks with a few fire and non-elemental attacks thrown in there. I don’t do well with water magic, unfortunately, and wind is a tricky one to control.”

Feeling another rush of curiosity, Nagisa turned to face him eagerly. “Show me!”

“Show you?”

“Show me your magic!”

Taken aback by the sudden request, Rei gaped at him for a moment before composing himself. “Very well, if you insist.”

Rei stood up and took a step forward, flinching when the ship rocked beneath his feet. Then he opened his book, holding it in front of himself and closing his eyes. A magic circle glowed golden beneath him, and the book floated into the air, leaving his hands to hover around it. Then he began chanting an incantation in a language Nagisa could not understand but knew to be one of the most ancient languages in their world, the basis of all magic spells. As he spoke, winds blew around him, whipping his blue hair into the air, moving his traveller’s cloak out of the way so Nagisa could see right underneath it. (A white shirt, black waistcoat and black trousers, and a pocket-watch. Far more formal than Nagisa had imagined, but it suited him very well.

Suddenly, Rei opened his eyes.

Rocks appeared from nowhere, floating around his body like a satellite, a constant state of defence. He looked like a very strange planet.

“Woah!” Nagisa said. “That’s amazing!”

“Thank you,” Rei said, pushing his glasses up to hide his smile. As he did so, the rocks disappeared, and Rei’s clothes and hair settled, his traveller’s cloak snug around him once more. “Though you flatter me. I still have much to learn as a mage, even if I have mastered the basic theories.”

Nagisa was about to open his mouth, to tell him that he was still way better than Nagisa at this kind of stuff-

Except one of his guild members yelled, “Land ho!”

Sure enough, when they looked forward, they saw the silhouette of the capital of the western continent looming ahead of them, the spires of the palace brilliant against the sunset.

“Congratulations, Rei-chan,” Nagisa said, grinning at his friend. “You made it!”

Rei blinked at him, and for a moment Nagisa could convince himself that he looked a little disappointed. “Ah, so we did.”

The next hour or so was spent gathering personal belongings as well as the stock they’d been asked to take across here, along with Rei’s safe passage. With each box he lugged to the deck, Nagisa’s heart sunk a little more, knowing that his time with Rei was almost up. It was possible that they would see each other again, but given that Rei’s experience on the ship had not been a great one, he might find a different way to return to the central continent from whence they had came.

Just as Nagisa heaved the final box onto the deck and Makoto lowered the gangway, he heard a cough behind him. Turning, he found Rei standing there, holding his luggage in one hand and coughing into the other one, his eyes averted.

“Rei-chan?”

Lilac eyes flicked over to him. “Are you staying here long?”

Nagisa blinked a couple of times in surprise. “Er, I’m not sure. Probably only a day or two. Why?”

A flash of something like sadness went through Rei’s eyebrows, making them dip for a moment before he composed himself, dropping his hand and facing Nagisa head-on. “I would be honoured if you would like to meet up before your guild leaves again.”

“Oh!” Nagisa felt a flicker of hope, burning bright inside of a smile which stretches slowly across his lips. “I’d love that!”

Rei’s eyes widened at his reply before softening into a small smile. “I’m glad. Shall we meet here tomorrow, then? If you’re available, that is.”

Nagisa nodded, his blond hair bobbing around his ears. “Yeah, that’s great.”

“Okay.” Rei smiled at him for a long moment, not taking his eyes off of him until his cheeks went pink and he looked down at his feet. “Well, I’d best be off. I’ll see you tomorrow, Nagisa-kun.”

As Nagisa waved him goodbye, he felt his heart soaring into the sky. Quietly, he spoke a few words, meant only for the sea and the mage who was too far away to hear them.

“Guess you found your sea legs, Rei-chan.”

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me at [randomactuallywrites-57](http://randomactuallywrites-57.tumblr.com) on tumblr | [@randomwriter57](http://twitter.com/randomwriter57) on twitter!
> 
>  
> 
> If you're a fan of the Tales Of games, which inspired the setting for this oneshot, come yell about them with me, if you like (I'm [@luzrofrulay](http://twitter.com/luzrofrulay) on twitter | [luzrof-rulay](http://luzrof-rulay.tumblr.com) on tumblr).


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